Wednesday, May 23, 2007

New Toon: The Afterlife Adventures of Jerry Falwell

I thought long and hard about this. But, like Reagan and Strom Thurmond, this dude was just way too evil and hateful to deserve any respect. He spent his life fighting for segregation and the dismantling of public education in favor of fundamentalist religious education, and fighting against gay rights and women's rights. He was a first-class hate spewer. I don't actually believe in ghosts or Hell, but if there were a Hell...

Anyway, everything in this cartoon is true. Yes, Falwell is primarily known as a gay-hater and anti-feminist, but he got his start in pro-segregationist racism (see The Southern Poverty Law Center):

Falwell was plain enough about his views; in 1964, he told a local paper that the Civil Rights Act had been misnamed: "It should be considered civil wrongs rather than civil rights."

Falwell was later forced to change his stance on segregation, but if anything, he became more virulently anti-gay as time went on. One of his main goals was to completely replace the U.S. public school system with private Christian schools. And he did indeed blame 9/11 on feminists, gays, "secularists", and the ACLU (for which he technically apologized, but it hardly seemed sincere).

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Gay-hater Jerry Falwell dead at 73

Just heard the news. "Moral Majority" founder Falwell took public gay-blaming and gay-bashing to whole new levels of magnitude. I'm so tempted to draw him in Hell wondering where all the gay people are (or maybe he accidentally gets let into Heaven and would rather be in Hell because there are too many gay people around cramping his gaybashing style). Somewhere, Tinky Winky is laughing. From 365gay:

Falwell, the founder of the Moral Majority and Liberty University, had a long history of opposing gay rights.
In 1976 he, along with Anita Bryant, led the charge against gay adoption in Florida leading to the most repressive anti-gay adoption law in the US.
Following the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington in 2001 Falwell declared that gays and pro choice advocates were to blame.

Update: Matt Bors is so all over this already, with a little something he calls "Too Soon Comics." Meanwhile I have postponed my decision to draw about Falwell to next week. Me=wimp.

My experience wedding dress shopping with my mom. Sticker shock overload! We went to a store that sold USED and SAMPLE wedding dresses, many of which were stained, torn, worn or needed alterations, but still cost at least $1,200 each. So I got a white lacy 50s-style knee-length cocktail dress for $100 on eBay.

Saturday, April 14, 2007

Bush no longer asks for war funding, he asks for "funding to protect our troops in harm's way." Otherwise known as "funding to KEEP our troops getting killed for no damn reason." War is peace, freedom is slavery, my head is spinning.
I drew this several days ago, when it just looked like Imus would get a two-week suspension. His attempt to apologize on the Al Sharpton radio show was ridiculous, including the lovely phrase "you people." And yes, a while back he referred to black journalist Gwen Ifill as a "cleaning lady" (see her excellent Times Op-Ed on the matter). Some thoughts, in no particular order.

So yeah, nasty hate speech. Totally disgusting, worthy of outrage and protest and probation. But I don't know about firing, and not because I'm worried about Imus' right to get paid $10 million a year for hate speech. I'm worried about the right of left-wingers and progressives and feminists and anti-racists and LGBT people and humanists to push the envelope on the other side without being accused of, say "anti-Catholic" or "anti-Christian" bigotry.

I'm not crying for Imus, or for Ann Coulter for losing newspapers whose editors should have had the good judgment never to run her column. My concern is about these kind of instant massive firing mobilizations in general, which I worry can make it dangerous for left-wingers and progressives to try to make a living pushing the envelope in over-the-top art/comedy/commentary/satire without worrying the rightwing attack dogs will take some out-of-context comment or image they made and turn it into a “destroy him/her!” campaign. By using these same tactics, I think we might be justifying them. And provoking the righties into going after leftwing commentators for “revenge."

Sure we can clearly see the distinction between Imus’s hate speech and, for example, the firing of Bill Maher after 9/11 for making a comment that didn't fit the gung-ho patriotic Bush-can-do-no-wrong atmosphere at the time. But the rightwing attack dogs are all about playing the “gotcha” game, and they are happy to cry “hate speech” and “bigotry” at anyone who expresses anti-religious or “anti-Christian” views, for example. Or to cry “treason” at anyone expressing anti-Bush views. Think of the way rightwing Catholic groups launched a major smear campaign against the two feminist Edwards bloggers for their supposed history of “anti-Catholic bigotry” (i.e. feminist prochoice commentary), or the many campaigns that have been leveled against cartoonist Ted Rall. Many people who make a living from left-wing commentary and cartooning have been in fear for their livelihood due to massive campaigns of outrage based on words or images taken completely out of context or misinterpreted.

I completely support censuring the haters and raising voices against hate speech and making it loud and clear that it’s not acceptable. In fact, that's pretty much what I've dedicated my entire cartooning career to.

But there needs to be room for radical dissent and controversial content... and it'd be hypocritical of me to say that privilege only belongs to speech I agree with or don't find hateful or offensive.

Not that there isn't a line somewhere, or that people shouldn't be fired for being openly bigoted assholes, and not that Imus shouldn't have been fired. When Trent Lott revealed that he wanted to see a segregationist United States Strom Thurmond KKK style, he should have been out on his ass. Instead he's now Senate Minority Whip.

Sharpton said he wasn't trying to bring down Imus, he was trying to "lift decency up." But is emphasizing that all we want from our media is cleanliness and decency the way to make it more progressive? Or is just going to encourage editors to choose content based primarily on safety?

The market and advertisers played a big role in this, and I'm not going to celebrate that (scroll down for reference). These same market forces don't make supporting or backing marginal progressive forces or voices a priority and they haven't squat to diversify who gets precious TV and radio airtime and audience: the same old bunch of white guys. They were happy to support Imus for years of similar comments, and only bailed when it became a PR problem. Would these same advertisers bail from a gay program if targeted on a massive scale by rightwing Christian activists?

All that said, what I really want to see in the media is real race/gender diversity and some strong progressive voices, instead of a wall of hatemongers like Imus/Lou Dobbs/Limbaugh/Glenn Beck/Hannity/O’Reilly and a bunch of meaningless centrists.

Obviously Imus's departure hardly marks the End of All Things Sexist and Racist on the Radio. But do we really want to get out big scrubby erasers and start making lists of who needs to go? And why didn’t Media Matters mention Lou Dobbs on their list of other racist commenters still on the air? His crazed xenophobic rants about Mexican immigrants trying to destroy the white middle class certainly qualify as topnotch racism. I still hold that he is an Evil Martian Overlord.

Friday, March 30, 2007

Bay Windows Interview With Ted Rall about Ann Coulter

Bay Windows (my longest-run newspaper comics home!) has an excellent interview with my good buddy and fellow Cartoonist With Attitude Ted Rall about why he disagrees with the HRC campaign to get Ann Coulter's column dropped over her use of the word "faggot" in a recent speech. (Remember: Ted despises Coulter and even considered suing her for lies she told about him in a previous speech. But he has also been the target of successful right-wing campaigns flooding editors with fake "I'm going to cancel my subscription unless you drop that evil Ted Rall" letters).

Thursday, March 29, 2007

My goodness, I don't know what I was thinking but I did three this week (four if you count one for Lambda Legal that will be up soon)! Yikes! Here we go:

This cartoon was inspired by the recent re-firing of longtime Largo, Florida City Manager Steve Stanton after Stanton announced he planned to transition to life as a woman and change his name to Susan. (I only say "he" because Stanton is, as I understand it, still using that pronoun for now.) I say "re-firing" because the Largo City Commission held a hearing after its initial discriminatory decision to fire Stanton, and made the same bad decision again despite testimony in his favor.

Stanton's firing is far from unusual, so I decided to make the cartoon about anti-transgender workplace discrimination in general, rather than focus on that case. I'm not sure how many people realize that in most places in this country, employers are legally permitted to fire transgender and gay employees on the basis of their gender identity or sexual orientation. We need a national ENDA (employment non-discrimination act) and now!

Finally, it came out in the New York Times last week that the NYPD spent tons of time and money placing spies in non-violent peace groups around the country before the 2004 RNC. The cartoon was inspired by this bit:

Marco Ceglie, who performs as Monet Oliver dePlace in Billionaires for Bush, said he had suspected that the group was under surveillance by federal agents — not necessarily police officers — during weekly meetings in a downtown loft and at events around the country in the summer of 2004.

“It was a running joke that some of the new faces were 25- to 32-year-old males asking, ‘First name, last name?’ ” Mr. Ceglie said. “Some people didn’t care; it bothered me and a couple of other leaders, but we didn’t want to make a big stink because we didn’t want to look paranoid. We applied to the F.B.I. under the Freedom of Information Act to see if there’s a file, but the answer came back that ‘we cannot confirm or deny.’ ”

Monday, March 19, 2007

New Toon: Supporting the Troops, the Bush Way

For some of my older toons on Don't Ask, Don't Tell, see "Patriotism, Pentagon-Style" and "Letters of the Law". It's always struck me as particularly painful that under Don't Ask, Don't Tell, LGB service members can't communicate honestly and openly with their sweethearts for fear of being outed.

For another recent cartoon on Don't Ask, Don't Tell, see August, and for another one on the conditions at Walter Reed, see Matt.

Now I can barely cover a tiny fraction of Big Gay News Stories with my biweekly cartoons. Big LGBT News is just Big News period, now. I haven't even had a chance to draw about the discriminatory firing of a transgender city manager in Florida or a transgender college dean in Michigan. I haven't had a chance to draw about Ann Coulter's F-word flinging. I don't think I'll be able to do anything about Gen. Peter Pace's "homosexuality is immoral" crap.

Anyway, just in case I don't get to draw about the Coulter business, here's my two cents: she's the same psycho crazy racist deranged homophobic hate-monger extremist she ever was, but it's somewhat nice that fewer mainstream outlets can continue to pretend she's a reasonable conservative commentator whose views deserve an airing.

BUT it astonishes me that grade-A homophobes like Mitt Romney are (who introduced her with great pleasure at CPAC right before she started throwing around the word "faggot") would bother trying to distance themselves from her. The man's entire presidential campaign is based on rallying gay-haters. His campaign slogan might as well be "I hate gay people and want to restrict their rights and make discrimination against them legal way more than these other guys". So what's the difference between him and Coulter?

Or George W. "amend the constitution to protect traditional marriage" Bush and Coulter, for that matter? Maybe Bush stays away from Coulter's vocabulary, but he's the one who puts into practice what she preaches...

Deadline: April 16, 2007Cartoons required: One 6" x 9" cartoon or illustration, in black & white or color, at least 300 dpi. Can be single-panel or multi-panel.
Send to: faircourtscontest@lambdalegal.orgPrizes: 1st prize is nationwide exposure in The Advocate; 2nd prize is a $150 gift certificate to the comic book store of your choice and 3rd prize is a $50 gift certificate to the comic book store of your choice.
Judges: Mikhaela Reid, Joan Hilty, Phil Jimenez, George Stoll

Details:
Without fair courts unmarried people might not be able to buy condoms.
Without fair courts gay and lesbian people could be prosecuted for having sex in their own homes.
Without fair courts America's schools could still be segregated by law.

Lambda Legal’s “Life Without Fair Courts” alternate reality editorial cartoon series by artist Mikhaela Reid depicts what life would be like if courts had not upheld the Constitution in past landmark cases. Check out the first four in the series on our site and in The Advocate.

Get involved by showing us what this country might be like without fair courts and landmark civil rights cases, or by depicting discrimination still going on today against LGBT people or other groups.

Lambda Legal has teamed up with Prism Comics and media sponsor, The Advocate, to present the Life Without Fair Courts Illustration Contest. Submit your entry between January 16 and April 16, 2007 to faircourtscontest@lambdalegal.org for a chance to win nationwide exposure of your work or gift certificates to the comic book store of your choice.

Wednesday, March 07, 2007

New Toon: Sgt. Dobson's Boot Camp with Rudy and Mitt!

Otherwise known as "Formerly 'Moderate' Republicans Try to Court the Religious Right"
James Dobson terrifies me. So far I believe Romney is the only candidate to have actually met with the Focus on the Family mastermind, but it remains to be seen whether Dobson will endorse him, as his Mormonism and former moderate views don't sit well with many right-wing evangelical family values types.

Giuliani is currently polling way ahead of Romney and McCain. But word is that he doesn't stand a chance with religious right voters due to his adultery, serial marriages/divorces and pro-choice/pro-gay views and history. Romney even claims Rudy is pro marriage equality, but there's no evidence for that. And Rudy's recently been emphasizing that he only believes in marriage between "a man and a woman".

I have a long history of both despising Mitt Romney and drawing cartoons about him--I started out as a cartoonist for the Boston Phoenix when Mitt was just a slimy gubernatorial candidate. I watched him get progressively more anti-gay and anti-choice and it saddens me to think he has even a chance at the White House. I think he's polling third, but he's now the most anti-choice, anti-gay candidate running.

P.P.S.I'm still going to do a cartoon about anti-transgender workplace discrimination, but it'll be for next week, folks.

P.P.P.S. I wish I had the time this week to do something extra about the Walter Reed hospital mess and problems in the VA system. My grandmother Melba was a disabled Korean war veteran, and it was something she was deeply passionate about. I did
this 2003 cartoon back when she received a letter from the VA asking to give back part of her meager benefits check.

Thursday, March 01, 2007

Stand up against workplace discrimination!

In case you're wondering, my next cartoon is going to be about employment discrimination against trans people, with particular regard to two major recent discriminatory firings. In Largo, Florida, long-time city manager Steve (now Susan, I believe) Stanton was fired less than a week after coming out as trans. In Spring Arbor, Michigan a university dean's contract was terminated when she legally changed her name from John to Julie. Pam's House Blend has a thorough roundup of details on the Largo, Florida case.

I touched on this issue in a recent Lambda Legal cartoon as well. We need a national employment non-discrimination act for lesbian, gay bisexual and transgender people, and we need it YESTERDAY. It may be 2007, but millions of Americans can still be fired without recourse for being gay or trans, and it happens every day in much less high-profile cases.

New Toons: Rats Gone Wild, HPV, Hate Report

This is a somewhat random assortment--the Rats Gone Wild and NYC Condoms cartoons were drawn for Chelsea Now, of course, and the other two are my usual weekly strip. The HPV/cervical cancer vaccine issue is complicated, and I'm not necessarily endorsing a mandatory vaccine, just registering my total disagreement with the whole "my precious little daughter won't EVER have sex so she doesn't need a vaccine" crowd.

And the brutal hate crime murder of 72-year out gay man Andrew Anthos is just incredibly depressing, which accounts for the total lack of sarcasm or humor or my usual artfulness in that cartoon.

P.S. Regarding NY Comic Con: suffice it to say I got to hang with Keith Knight, Alison Bechdel, David Rees, R. Stevens, Ted Rall and others, which made the whole business worthwhile.

Deadline: March 15, 2007Cartoons required: One 6" x 9" cartoon or illustration, in black & white or color, at least 300 dpi. Can be single-panel or multi-panel.
Send to: faircourtscontest@lambdalegal.orgPrizes: 1st prize is nationwide exposure in The Advocate; 2nd prize is a $150 gift certificate to the comic book store of your choice and 3rd prize is a $50 gift certificate to the comic book store of your choice.
Judges: Mikhaela Reid, Joan Hilty, Phil Jimenez, George Stoll

Details:
Without fair courts unmarried people might not be able to buy condoms.
Without fair courts gay and lesbian people could be prosecuted for having sex in their own homes.
Without fair courts America's schools could still be segregated by law.

Lambda Legal’s “Life Without Fair Courts” alternate reality editorial cartoon series by artist Mikhaela Reid depicts what life would be like if courts had not upheld the Constitution in past landmark cases. Check out the first four in the series on our site and in The Advocate.

Get involved by showing us what this country might be like without fair courts and landmark civil rights cases, or by depicting discrimination still going on today against LGBT people or other groups.

Lambda Legal has teamed up with Prism Comics and media sponsor, The Advocate, to present the Life Without Fair Courts Illustration Contest. Submit your entry between January 16 and March 15, 2007 to faircourtscontest@lambdalegal.org for a chance to win nationwide exposure of your work or gift certificates to the comic book store of your choice.

Thursday, February 08, 2007

New Toon: Personal Anti-Immigration Wall

Wouldn't it be awesome if all the nativist nutjobs like long-shot Republican presidential hopeful Tom Tancredo were trapped in these things? They'd be too busy watching their own perimeters to waste our time with their racist claptrap.

Friday, January 19, 2007

My Life Without Fair Courts cartoon series launch

+ A cartoon contest
I meant to post this a few days ago, but you can now check out the first two cartoons and info about the cases that inspired them in my Life Without Fair Courts cartoon series for Lambda Legal. You might have noticed I've been on the quiet side lately, and this is partly why. The series will contain 10-12 cartoons total (2 new cartoons per month).

The Advocate features "Life Without Fair Courts" graphic art, artist and contest in its January 30th issue, on stands today.

(New York, January 16, 2007) --- Today, Lambda Legal, in conjunction with Prism Comics and media sponsor, The Advocate, launches its "Life Without Fair Courts" editorial cartoon series and "Life Without Fair Courts Contest," seeking to educate the public in a new way about the need for fair courts.

"We're thrilled to be able to have artist Mikhaela Reid on board to illustrate the need for judicial fairness in such a fresh way," said Hector Vargas, Deputy Director of Education and Public Affairs at Lambda Legal. "We look forward to seeing other artists display how courts affect their lives through the 'Life Without Fair Courts Contest'"

As part of its commitment to educating the public about the need for fair courts, Lambda Legal has commissioned graphic artist Mikhaela Reid to do a series of graphic art called "Lambda Legal's Life Without Fair Courts." The series is an alternate reality cartoon that depicts what life would be like if courts had not upheld the Constitution and individual rights --- but instead decided in favor of discrimination in past landmark court cases.

Paired with the art series, Lambda Legal has teamed up with Prism Comics (an organization for the LGBT graphic artist community), and media sponsor, The Advocate, to launch a nationwide contest to find the best representation of what the artists' own lives would look like without fair courts. First prize in the contest is exposure in The Advocate and on Advocate.com. Contest judges include Joan Hilty, Editor at DC Comics; Phil Jimenez, Freelance Illustrator and Comic Book Artist; Mikhaela Reid, creator of the original series, Life Without Fair Courts; and George Stoll, Art Director for The Advocate. Submissions to the contest will be accepted through 11:59 p.m. on March 15, 2007. All entries should be submitted to either Lambda Legal, c/o Fair Courts Contest, 120 Wall Street, Suite 1500, New York, NY 10005 or faircourtscontest@lambdalegal.org. For a complete list of contest rules visit www.lambdalegal.org/CourtingJustice

As part of the launch, The Advocate's January 30, 2007 issue, on stands today, includes a feature article with art by Mikhaela Reid and information about Lambda Legal's Courting Justice campaign to educate the public about the need for fair courts. The art can also be found at www.lambdalegal.org/courtingjustice. and Advocate.com.

Courting Justice is Lambda Legal's education campaign designed to add the organization's unique perspective to the fight to defend fair and impartial courts. The campaign seeks to ensure that LGBT and HIV-affected people know what's at stake and how to get involved in efforts to defend fair and impartial courts at the federal and state levels. As part of the Courting Justice campaign, Lambda Legal launched a special website to provide critical information about the role of the courts in protecting civil rights and current threats to that role. More information about Courting Justice can be found on its website at: www.lambdalegal.org/courtingjustice.

Lambda Legal is a national organization committed to achieving full recognition of the civil rights of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgender people and those with HIV through impact litigation, education and public policy work.